


Rush

by Kryptaria



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Consent, Dark, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, S&M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-10
Updated: 2014-06-10
Packaged: 2018-02-04 04:26:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1765432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dark glimpse into how two super-soldiers deal with Bucky's past as the Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rush

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AstraKiseki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstraKiseki/gifts).



> Thanks to rayvanfox for his always-valuable beta skills!
> 
> The prompt for this one was "Maybe Bucky caning Steve to give him some stripes on his rear or his back if you care to do that kink?" I'm not sure this is where you intended the story to go, but it's where the characters led. I'm just running along behind them, trying to write down the details.
> 
> ~~~

A part of Bucky had always been the Winter Soldier. Steve knew it, and he suspected Bucky knew it, though they never talked about it. They danced around the edges of that knowledge in the sparring ring and on the firing range, whenever Bucky’s eyes would go cold and calculating. Steve blazed with the passion of his convictions giving him strength and accuracy, but Bucky was most deadly when he’d turned to ice inside. A part of Steve thought that was why Bucky got along so well with JARVIS: Because while JARVIS was a machine who acted like a man, Bucky was the reverse. An assassin with the heart of a loving man and the mind of a killing machine.

Back in Brooklyn, a lifetime ago, Steve’s hot temper had started fights that Bucky usually ended with one calculating punch. In the war, Steve had been the tip of the spear aimed at the enemy’s heart, but it had been Bucky’s precision shooting that had cleared a path for Steve’s assault.

And now... Now, Steve didn’t start fights. And Bucky wasn’t ready to plunge back into battle against whatever enemy dared show its face in a world protected by the Avengers.

Sometimes, it was enough to spar. But sometimes, the boxing ring and the training room and the firing range weren’t enough to rein in Bucky’s darker half. Those were the days when they broke things: the gym, the reinforced training room, in their quest to sate their need for physical release in a world not built to withstand two overtrained, time-lost super-soldiers. And those days, their fights ended in another emptied-out first aid kit and bloody towels in the laundry and, once, side-by-side beds in the medical wing at Avengers Tower.

(Apparently, Natasha won a bet that day, having chosen Steve and Bucky as the underdogs contenders for first-to-self-hospitalize. Everyone else had picked Tony.)

 

~~~

 

Eventually, even fighting to unconsciousness wasn’t enough.

The lingering darkness — the knife-sharp tension inside Bucky — started to build, until everyone but Steve walked on eggshells around him.

 

~~~

 

The gym was different every time Steve and Bucky entered. The team was constantly updating the selection of weapons and training aids. This time, there was a box of what looked like wooden swords. No, not swords — or not wood, at any rate. The ‘blades’ were made of strips of something like bamboo, light and flexible.

Bucky reached past Steve and picked up one of the swords. _“Chto eta?”_ he asked. It was always a bad sign when he slipped unaware into Russian — a hint that the lingering traces of his programming were resurfacing.

“No idea, pal,” Steve admitted, giving his sword an experimental swipe through the air. “Practice weapon?”

Bucky huffed derisively. That was Steve’s only warning before Bucky twisted away, impossibly graceful for a man of his stature, and brought the sword down. Steve’s block was clumsy and instinctive, but effective.

Their eyes met over the crossed swords.

Steve broke position first with a hard, unexpected shove, giving himself room to lash out with a kick to Bucky’s chest, sending him reeling back.

And then they were locked in combat, too fast and vicious to be safe, even if they’d bothered with the protective gear they hadn’t even considered. The practice swords were sharp and stung viciously through the sweatshirt Steve hadn’t taken off, and he thought about saying they should go easy, but there was no stopping Bucky like this —

Until Steve slipped past Bucky’s guard, and the practice sword lashed across Bucky’s face, scoring a thin, dark welt across his cheekbone, snapping Bucky’s head to the side. Steve flinched away, lowering the sword.

“Bucky? Are you —”

 _“Horosho,”_ Bucky interrupted softly, lifting his metal hand to the welt. He blinked when his metal fingers touched his face. “It’s... good.”

Steve relaxed, only to scramble into a defensive position when Bucky came at him again, driving him three steps back with the ferocity of the attack. Knowing better than to get trapped in a defensive spiral against the Winter Soldier, Steve took a hit on the shoulder so he could cut at Bucky’s body. Bucky turned away, and Steve’s attack landed squarely on his back.

Bucky hissed, turning to look at Steve over his left shoulder. Steve’s question died on his lips when he saw how Bucky’s eyes had gone wide and dark, like the chasm that Steve felt opening up right before his feet.

When Bucky threw his practice sword aside, the clatter made Steve flinch.

And when Bucky pulled off his sweatshirt, leaving his hair a tangled mess as the ponytail elastic slipped free, Steve asked, “Buck?”

Bucky shook his head and raked his right hand through his hair. _“Snova,”_ he said — a word Steve didn’t understand. Deliberately, he turned his back to Steve, saying, “Do it again.”

“No,” Steve said, even though he knew it was a losing battle. The accidental welt on Bucky’s face was already fading. The serum in Bucky’s veins was less refined and more brutal than Dr. Erskine’s formula, but it was enough to give Bucky the same resilience as Steve. There was no damage these swords could do to either of them that wouldn’t be healed in minutes, short of using a jagged piece of the wood as a stabbing weapon.

Without so much as a blink of warning, Bucky attacked, metal fist flashing in the bright gym lights. The punch hit Steve’s arm with a force that sent painful tingles down to his fingertips. Steve blocked the next two strikes, and his retaliation was instinctive.

Bucky’s surrender wasn’t.

Instead of blocking with his metal arm, Bucky twisted, and his only consideration to personal safety was to take the strike across his right shoulderblade, where the thick muscle protected his bones.

Bucky’s breath left him in a gasp. His inhale was hitched. Pained.

 _“Snova,”_ he demanded.

Steve wanted to say no. That this was enough. That he wasn’t going to do this. Because it was one thing for them to burn together in combat and entirely something else for Bucky to stand there, defenseless and vulnerable, and ask Steve to beat him. Steve would sooner tear out his own soul than hurt Bucky.

But the empty spaces in Bucky’s memory were far more painful than anything Steve could ever do.

So he braced his feet and raised the practice sword, tightening his trembling hands until his grasp was steady. And then, without flinching, he struck.

 

~~~

 

Wet, hot air weighed heavily in Steve’s lungs. Water pounded down on his body as he turned, using his unnatural strength to support Bucky’s weight. Chest-to-chest, Bucky let Steve guide him under the showerhead. He made a quiet, contented sound when the water pounded down over the raised red welts that covered the upper half of his back.

“Too much?” Steve asked, wrapping his other arm around Bucky’s waist.

Bucky shook his head, burying his face against Steve’s neck. “’M fine, Steve,” he said, and his Brooklyn came out sharp and crystal clear even through the slurred mumble.

Steve exhaled in relief, closing his eyes as Bucky’s arms came up around his shoulders. “That was stupid, even for us, Buck.”

That got him a languid, soft laugh. “Needed it, though.”

Steve was very conscious of the lack of a pronoun there. He could slot ‘we’ into that sentence as easily as ‘I’.

And while he hadn’t enjoyed _hurting_ Bucky, he did want to give Bucky whatever he needed, even if it was...

Well, he didn’t know _what_ it was.

“Buck?”

Bucky hummed wordlessly and leaned more heavily into Steve’s arms.

Tightening his grasp in case Bucky passed out, Steve asked, “Why did we... do that?”

Bucky’s huff of breath made Steve shiver. “Ever hear of runner’s high?”

“Yeah.”

“Ever experience it?”

Steve blinked water away from his lashes. “Huh? I don’t think so, no.”

“Exactly. We can’t. Stupid serum.”

“Hey. That serum’s keeping us alive through all our stupid.”

“Yeah, well... endorphins.” Bucky took a deep breath and straightened. He rolled his shoulders, then tipped his head under the spray to slick his hair back. “You okay?”

Steve nodded, releasing his tight hold as he stepped back. “I guess. You?”

Bucky gave Steve a contented smile. “Yeah. Thanks, Steve.”

Steve returned the smile and touched Bucky’s warm shoulder. “I told you, Buck. Whatever you need.”

**Author's Note:**

> Rough translations:
> 
>  _Chto eta?_ What is it?  
>  _Horosho:_ Good.  
>  _Snova:_ Again.


End file.
